BUJUMBURA, Burundi (AP) -- The search for a new president of this central
African country faltered Thursday as opposition parties squabbled over
how to divide Cabinet posts.

The uneasy calm in Burundi's lakeside capital was also broken, with
gunfire and exploding grenades setting nerves on edge in the normally quiet
suburbs. One person was killed.

Foreign Minister Jean-Marie Ngendahayo said a decison on the presidency
was postponed at least until Friday after opposition parties disputed whether
to divide Cabinet posts among the 13 political parties before or after
naming a new president.

Burundi has lost two leaders in the past year, one in a failed coup
and the other in a suspicious plane crash in which Rwanda's leader also
died.

Six men are vying for the post of president, which is being decided
by forum of representatives from the country's 13 political parties, plus
two bishops, one businessman and a trade unionist. The group has been meeting
since Monday to pick a consensus candidate.

Ngendahayo said the candidate would be either acting President Sylvestre
Ntibantunganya or Charles Mukasi, 39, a former journalist and Hutu member
of the Tutsi-dominated Union for National Progress, or UPRONA.

Because he represents the Hutu majority but has sought to assuage the
Tutsis, Ntigantunganya is seen as the candidate best able to keep Burundi
from exploding into civil war like neighboring Rwanda.

The talks foundered after UPRONA demanded at least half of the opposition's
share of Cabinet positions. Other parties objected to the demands.

Political and ethnic unrest in Burundi has made holding a national election
impossible. As in Rwanda, Burundi's population is mostly Hutu, with a Tutsi
minority.

In both countries, Belgian rule protected Tutsis as leaders. But after
independence in 1962, a series of clashes with Hutus forced Burundi's Tutsis
to share power, leading to the election of the country's first Hutu president
in June 1993.